Some Dry Stuff

[Dry Hairy Tree]

I generate a few ideas now and then.

To start with - here's a design for a smelting column base that's quite tidy. Coal feed is from the left or right the design slightly altered for each.

Smelt1.jpg (84.74 KiB) Viewed 17022 times

Here's a blueprint for left coal feed:

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and for right...

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Here's what they look like in action

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That 1 tile gap between columns... It's specific to this mid-game design/instance - so I can align better with train stations as they must tile/align in multiples of 2 tiles e.g. 12 tiles... while these smelting columns are only 11 tiles wide.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Back when I started playing Factorio, I figured you could automate an awful lot of the stuff just by having gears and circuits on hand. Here's one of the early efforts which is hilariously bad but demonstrates some of the scope for this concept. It's also good to laugh at myself.

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The 'building store' has undergone many iterations, none of them so tragic as my first.

This is not a 'shopping mall' or 'build everything', but it is in the same line of thinking. It's about using gears and circuits to create a wide variety of products in a relatively small space. Here's how I start one today. These lines of plate are directly from smelting (no gaps like in the design above intended for rail). They are perfectly aligned to wedge a new line of gears and circuits between them. Red science set up, gears and circuits boxed, next...

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

The beauty of having circuits/gears on hand becomes obvious quickly. Green science done, belts and (soon to be) inserters in boxes. Remember that burner inserter phase, slinging iron and copper into assemblers trying to make circuits, gears, belts and basic science. That's all automatic now. Wasn't so painful, was it.

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Red and green science open the game up dramatically. Rail, military science, steel smelters, red belts, oil... The adaptations to the building store from here depend on your goals. Whether you plan to get on with working towards a rocket, or a multi rocket per minute mega-base, you're going to need some things...

[Dry Hairy Tree]

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I like to go for infrastructure first. These assemblers drain the belt quickly and remind me I need to fill out smelting (belts, inserters), mining (drills), and upgrade and add to gear assembly (assemblers). Soon I need more power (pipes and gears) etc. It's a fairly minimalist approach, rather than adding an inserter array and belt array that are superflous this early in the game, I've directed resources and buildings to produce more resources and buildings.

If the plan was to build a bus, I'd have gone for a belt array instead of assemblers. Again, it's your plan that decides what gets made first.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

BuildingStore5.jpg (180.72 KiB) Viewed 16919 times

Here it is in a broader context. The two smelting lines on the left to create this set up are minimal early game stuff but create the conditions to quickly proliferate. They can also be run directly onto/included in a bus after this.

The building store runs directly from lines out of smelting, and these resource lines can thus be continued in an orderly fashion through to a bus style set up, and removed later. In the interim, it can really improve early building.

In this scenario I've got the building store in and immediately researched steel/steel smelting (and I upgraded to steel steel smelters ), and then red belts while setting up steel and stone brick. That's the sum total of stone furnaces I'll use (64?) and as I upgrade e.g. steel already, I'll recycle those to power. That empty smelting lane is for more iron, to back up the building store/steel smelting and produce a red belt array like, now.

The red belts/steel smelters will double my output/throughput potential. So let's build em! (cup of tea first)

[Dry Hairy Tree]

More iron is the solution to most of Factorios early game problems. Decent smelters are making a huge difference and the second iron line is just the ticket. Now I can produce decent belts which at this stage removes a huge amount of potential belt and smelter replacing activities later on.

The red underground belt takes 2 seconds - well, that's what it says on the box... It also takes 40 gears...

My machine here only makes a red underground belt every 8 seconds.

It's freaking awesome! So early, so useful. That first smelter line is getting upgraded faster than a Factorio patch.

All the lines of plate remain unhindered if I want them for a bus.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

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To the left I now have fast and long inserters made. In the centre more circuits supporting mining drill assembly. To the left the steel line is dragged up directly off the smelters and engines are made taking me 2/3 of the way to blue science ready. Meantime I've been researching oil among other things, making power, adding mining, smelting....

Only 16-17 steel smelters before the inserters won't load the red belt, fast inserters make no difference. It is what it is, I'll work with it. Sure glad I'm not trying to build with yellow belt still. However, I'm not going to pursue blue belts at all. It would be just to load red belts properly...

I'll just make the smelting shorter - 18 a side. Merging lines gives them that extra oomph if I really need it, as I've done with the iron above.

More iron is the solution to many of Factorios early game problems, and for mid game, more plastic is the solution to many problems.

It's time for a break as life happens darnit. But then, oil!

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Found a relatively easy compression solution. Too late to extend my initial smelters out to full length now, but this works well.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

In case you hadn't realised it, I aint building a bus.

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This looks a bit mad now but if you examine the build up the original smelting lines are obvious and placement begins to make sense. There is a bit of belt lacing going on to make it all work in the space given. There are no blueprints I hard build this to try improve/understand it better each time. I'm pretty happy with parts but others might do with a tweak.

Only the military is piecemeal (so far) but it works. The grenades feed off the coal straddling the end of an iron line. The turrets are where one might of thought blue belt assemblers go - wrong! The bullets grow where steel and copper intersect which is all rather organic really. You can't make turrets and red belts simultaneously, well, not quickly.

There's an end-plan to all this it should be easy to guess by now... perhaps.

There is red, green, blue, military and production science packs all being delivered to the labs in timely (1 per second) fashion. It requires stack inserter upgrade 2 to work properly cos long inserters be slow.

Now I need more. More copper smelting, more iron smelting, more! There's high tech to be made.

I'm close to 5 hours in which isn't awful considering the fluffing about I do. Can I do a sub 24 hour 0.16 rocket?

Used to be only about 2% of players had actually launched a rocket. I don't know the figures today but that was before they added two more science packs. I hope this is fairly straight forward to help newer players win the game. Still some finicking about to go yet. And all the darn satellite/silo stuff. What will I forget this time?

[Dry Hairy Tree]

There are a couple of fine points easy to miss in the above design. The green circuits heading to red and the electric engines do not seem sufficient for the build - till you note the little bit spare from the miner drill build is bled over to this feed. It was 1/2 an assembler short, exactly the spare output from the other.

Some builds do not seem sufficient as they'll get 8/10 items in the time required. As mentioned, inserter upgrades fix these problems if you must fix them.

The trick to enough plastic is enough oil. Don't fluff around with not enough refineries - Get 10. Accumulate solid fuel till you have over 11K THEN switch to advanced oil for more petroleum.

Don't be intimidated by purple and yellow science. The total amount required is 1300 of each - and these packs come out in pairs - so if you feed the machines 650 lots of inputs - you got all you require. You can build engines before oil and save every electric engine required before the oil is built - if you wanted. Don't forget the satellite also requires 200 = 850 total. It's breaking down some of these numbers showed me how minimal rocket building could be. After that the idea was to make it easy as well as minimal.

Putting components of purple/yellow builds in boxes was attempted several times and is still sorely tempting with batteries (don't forget the 100 accumulators that take batteries). The fact is setting up boxes plus maintaining them is no easier than setting up automation. Especially if you do multiple hand-fed machines it's too easy to mess it up. It might work for Anti Elitz cos he is a legend and obviously has not fried so many brain cells as I have.

The desired throughput within reasonably confined space, plus belt lacing outlines why my plan involves a red belt assembler so early. It's a game changer. Filling out endless yellow belts/smelting gets too boring too fast as I know it'll support jack.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Made a few mistakes to learn from/some I shoulda already learned, but all good.

Here's where the blue circuits fit, up snug against the red. Three more smelting lines (iron:copper:iron) get added to run a whole heap of green circuits for blue circuits and more reds.

Mistakes: The green circuits for the second red circuit build should come from the end nearest the smelters avoiding the need for a belt of greens all the way down to join plastic. The spacing of incoming/outgoing oil stuff coulda been better allowing more room for this phase. Both these issues pushed the second red circuit build 'out of place'.

Funny mistake: Researched up to Rocket Damage 4 before thinking "Wait a minute!"

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Running green circuits off the iron:copper:iron lines is a sweet set up for this stage of the game having such high demand. I just hope I've got enough copper there's a slight overbuild going on here and there I'm hoping it spreads out over things not chokes something out. If not enough copper - get more!

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Definitely needed more copper. Another line has brought it all together.

Speed modules are the last ingredient for high tech and they sit up top. I have double the circuits required to feed them so I can begin making production modules for the silo, and I will convert it to 16 x speed module assemblers towards rocket control units. I finished researching speed module 3, about to click rocket silo and... flashing signs and... power cut

I am a touch rusty hehe. Now running 160 steam engines and should be plenty.

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That's pretty much it. I need to get 100x accumulators and solar panels each, I'm boxing the electric engines already. 90 assemblers or 30 x 3 for rocket part assembly...

30 assemblers each will produce enough to make 1 x of each rocket part per second. 1000 x of each of these makes a rocket giving 1000 x science packs. This means that without modules the rocket and the science base (1 per second science builds) should theoretically make science at equal speed. Namely, 1 per second = 1000 per 1000 seconds.

Theoretically that is. This base is not built to support both rocket and science production simultaneously. Once the research is done, resources are diverted to the rocket.

A similar base adding more smelting/oil could easily churn out both in timely fashion. Theoretically a rocket every 16:40 which gives you most things you desire except mega-base bragging rights.

With production modules in the silo, you only need approximately 72% of the input to get (what would be non-moduled) 100% yield. 22 assemblers of each rocket part type will support this (21.6). This allows for the modules without having to retool the whole base to keep things in relative sync.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

What will I forget?... Freakin concrete! That cost me some time.

In future I'd make solar and accumulators early, just one assembler each, to have them done. The rocket was being made faster than the satellite parts so I had to wait for the last few panels.

Using a splitter on smelting lines you can take plates right up the production lines and reinforce really well. I'll not be shorting my smelting lines to accomodate for 0.16 issues anymore, just split the smelting line and merge it later where it's not blocking inserters.

Plenty of room for improvement but a relatively good model to start with.

Any hints after the play - MORE IRON MORE COPPER! And make the darn concrete....

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

I make more fun of buses than I make actual buses, but when I do make a bus, I like to make it speshil.

The subterrain mod allows you underground belts and pipes up to 250 tiles. You are charged x belt pieces for x length. All good. I do not like the color it's kinda 60's porn jungle underwear bad.

Using a bit of finesse you can make a really tidy bus. You can even make a bus without any gaps reducing the space by 50% or adding 50% more to the space.

On the left from bottom to top is lanes 1,2,3,4 exiting left. To the right lanes 1,2,3,4 exit right.

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Tidy Bus, cos why wouldn't you

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Building Store is the factory that supplies me with stuff to build a factory. In this case that wee starter base makes this base with all science produced, which should/could make a mega base from here with some adjustments. Building store - bigger building store - bigger building store???

The idea is to make a 'stock standard' base I spam out to get me deep into the game fast.

Shaved a lot of time off already = blueprints. Still several of them to make too. So much easier when you know where things go. Still a LOT of ironing out insofar as balance e.g. I can box steel and then spam it out for a rocket but it'd be nice to have a supply that doesn't dwindle when rockets are being made, enough to go round everywhere.

Still happy with this.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

I don't like bending my rail to accommodate for ore patches. There is a relatively easy solution which I'm sure others have figured out years ago...

Here's what I do now. Rail straight through the ore. Mining runs over top.

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[Dry Hairy Tree]

Artillery are just too much fun! The (non-targeted) range is rather limited until you churn out a few range upgrades but unless you have a mega base you quickly hit a wall...

Exponentially increasing research costs. I'm halfway through Artillery range 8 right now, and it requires 256000 science packs. I want to get Range 10 - as it is > 1M science packs, or > 1000 rockets for the one research.

So how am I going to do it?

One option is to line up many outposts with robots and repair packs, totally oversupply the base, unpause the game and go on holiday.

The other option is to go large.

Or perhaps the third option. The franchise concept I had when mucking about with Factorissimo. Yes, let's do that, minus Factorissimo.

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Above is a heavily defended rail line leading out to where I plan to expand. I place line down and use artillery targeting to clear biters as I go. It's > 100 hours into the game the biters are big, green, evolved and angry. They've eaten some trains, turrets, walls, power poles, lights, and boxes of wood I leave out to try and appease them.

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I create a heavily fortified position and set up an artillery turret. $everal radar also get placed. This is 'automated clearing' deep in hostile territory. I want the map both revealed and cleared. The turret ranges don't overlap yet but they will once range 8 is done.

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I use this small lake to make it easier for my lasers to defend.

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The artillery turret picks a dozen fights at once. It seems to operate shooting the nearest target in a radius. So it often circles and hits many enemy bases one after the other. The onslaught is inevitable, be prepared.

I went back to main base to build stuff but had to fly out and repair the outgoing rail/turret line twice so far as this area gets cleared.

It has what I hoped - sufficient resources for a base. A lowly 1 per second science base. The Prototype. I expect difficulties!

[Dry Hairy Tree]

My other favorite game got updated recently so that's what I've been playing. I'll be back to show this franchise concept (prototype is almost completed) when I'm over the other game, and not till then....

Anyhoo, just checking in with Factorio world. Hope folks are well. May all your builds be awesome.

^^Went back into this map and got completely bored. I want to create a map wherein, I can expand all over the place but, it is not repetitive. The franchise concept will get you numbers like no mega base ever could, I'm just not going to dedicate my life to proving it in a game when we see it everywhere in life. And I'm bored already So what now???

[Dry Hairy Tree]

Factories is an idea I came up with halfway through another map so I don't have a full example yet. But, it is a simple concept.

Factories is about being able to build and expand creatively across the map, without stamping out factory clones. Instead, multiple types of factories can be made, each dedicated to a specific item/type of item according to proximate resources, and what you want to do there.

The idea for this came from Arumba's 'Towns'.

The most important mod for (my version of) this concept is 'Infinite Ores'. No more outpost replacement, ever.

Factories spring up near resources. An iron patch with coal might become a dedicated steel smelting steel facility, without coal it might take on electric smelting, or ship coal in. It might be a gear factory, or simply an iron outpost. The possibilities open right up as the resources are infinite so the map will largely dictate placement of various elements rather than merely imposing ones will on the map by making a large central base via cliff explosives and landfill and trains shipping stuff in...

In Factories you do stuff like this

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Three coal patches converted to petroleum on-site. Powered on site with coal power. Funny thing is, this was meant to be for plastic but I needed so much petroleum in the map I was in, I had to use all of this for petroleum and ship the petroleum to another coal patch to make the plastic.

An important setting (for me) in this playstyle is to turn off pollution. Biters still hate me on sight, but they don't come looking for me. Enemy expansion however, is left on. My expansion will thus cause eventual conflict, with expansion parties finding my factories. Defenses/clearing will be required but they also will become dependent on terrain/circumstances rather than 'part of a blueprint'.

I hope I've made that all clear enough. Factories is a very enjoyable way to play for those with a bit of veterancy in the vanilla game, but no desire to go down the Bobs/angels wormhole. New things to try, new designs to make, while the game is relatively untouched.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

OK. Started playing a map with the intention of building Factories: emphasis plural.

I installed a quick start mod it gave me a bunch of assembly 1 machines, power, etc to kickstart the game - and most useful - construction bots. There's potentially a lot of building to be done.

The map settings I chose were all default except oil and water got switched up a bit. Can't recall exact settings: oil very small but common...

First thing I wanted to do was 'Open the game up'. I already have the construction bots but I still need: rail, steel and electric smelting, oil, miners, assemblers, inserters, belts military etc. So I started with my typical gears/circuits straight off the end of smelting columns, then adding steel to create many of the things I desire, and the components of the rest. This particular building store incorporates four types of science packs and rudimentary lab facilities to get things rolling. I'll need a lot of stuff. Most of it will be made here. Modules/beacons will be omitted/severely limited, maybe rockets only.

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Most of my factories will be red belt as blue requires tech that is so resource heavy and late you can almost finish the game to get there. And you probably need to get imported resources. If I start bringing more stuff in now I just wind up making a central base which is not the plan. A small amount of stone has been imported as it was necessary for steel and electric smelters and rail.

In time as science factories spring up the labs here will become redundant. The focus has been to open up the tech tree: speed of science production is not required so much as a good range of techs opening. There's loads to do already so it's pointless worrying about high tech/production for now. Instead I'll focus on what type of Factories I want to make first. And where I might place them. I'm happy with my decision/concept to use both steel and electric smelting, it opens the options up considerably.